Tag Archive: Featured

Reflections Over 2020

2021-01-05

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2021-01-05

Wow, it has been a heckuva year! One thought leads to another on this sunny-but-cool January 1. Having watched a few seasons of Forged in Fire, I’ve gained an appreciation of how difficult it is to pound and grind a lump of steel into a blade, even with power tools. There are many ways for it to go wrong.

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Covid: 9,665 new cases over 4 days in Switzerland

2021-01-05

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2021-01-05

Daily New Cases in Switzerland, January 4
Over the 4 days to 4 January 2020, Switzerland’s Federal Office of Public Health (FOPH) reported  9,665 new cases and 189 deaths bringing Switzerland’s Covid-19 death toll to 7,831 (confirmed 7,271). 

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OECD should focus on climate crisis and inequality, says Hildebrand

2021-01-04

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2021-01-04

Former Swiss National Bank Chairman Philipp Hildebrand
Former Swiss National Bank Chairman Philipp Hildebrand has been nominated by Switzerland to lead the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), whose Secretary General Angel Gurria is leaving in May 2021.

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SMART BOURSE – L’invité de la mi-journée : Thomas Costerg (Pictet WM)

2021-01-04

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Lundi 4 janvier 2021, SMART BOURSE reçoit Thomas Costerg (Économiste sénior US, Pictet WM)

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FX Daily, January 04: Rising Equities and Slumping Dollar Greet the New Year

2021-01-04

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2021-01-04

Overview:  The first day of the New Year, but it feels a lot like last year.  The dollar is under pressure, and equities are higher.  Outside of Japan and Malaysia, The MSCI Asia Pacific Index extended last week's 3.6% gain. It has not rallied for seven consecutive sessions.

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January Monthly

2021-01-04

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2021-01-04

It might not feel like a New Year, as the pandemic continues to ravage most countries. On top of the human toll, the economic fallout will continue to depress activity in the first part of 2021.  However, policymakers throughout the G7 provided more stimulus in late 2020 and extended many emergency facilities well into the New Year.

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2020 Was a Snack, 2021 Is the Main Course

2021-01-04

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2021-01-04

One of the dishes at the banquet of consequences that will surprise a great many revelers is the systemic failure of the Federal Reserve's one-size-fits-all "solution" to every spot of bother: print another trillion dollars and give it to rapacious financiers and corporations.

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“The real danger comes from massive state dependence”

2020-12-30

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2020-12-30

INTERVIEW WITH H.S.H. PRINCE MICHAEL OF LIECHTENSTEIN – Part I of II As we’re preparing to leave 2020 behind, a year that will most likely feature prominently in future history books, it is hard to look back on all that has happened without a sense of apprehension and uncertainty over what lies ahead. A lot has changed, economically, socially and politically, and those changes and challenges are unlikely to subside in the year to come....

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‘Brexit envy’ grows in Switzerland

2020-12-30

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2020-12-30

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announces a deal on December 24 Paul Grover Britain has finally negotiated a deal with the European Union. The European Court of Justice will not act as a court of arbitration. Some Swiss voices are now calling for Switzerland to get the same deal. The UK and the EU managed to agree on a last-minute trade deal after all. It will come into force provisionally on January 1. This will prevent customs duties...

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Economic outlook for Switzerland in 2021

2020-12-30

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2020-12-30

Have the Swiss and European Union economies already been through the worst, or will the pandemic cause more damage in 2021? Keystone / Martin Ruetschi Lockdown, home office, travel bans. The pandemic has shaken up the economy, but its disruptive power is having a selective effect. While the pharmaceutical industry is sailing through the crisis unscathed, the watch industry is being hit harder than any time since the last world war. What is the...

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Swiss want more digital services from the state

2020-12-30

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2020-12-30

Digitalisation is increasing pressure on state authorities, with almost three-quarters of Swiss expecting more digital services from the authorities, according to a survey by consultants Deloitte. Whether it’s paying parking fines or obtaining motorway toll stickers, Swiss want to be able to deal with such services online. A third of those surveyed could even imagine getting married via video conferencing.A large majority of the population would...

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‘We were too lax’ admits Swiss health minister on Covid-19

2020-12-29

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2020-12-29

In an interview with Swiss public television, SRF, Health Minister Alain Berset has acknowledged that Switzerland made mistakes in managing the coronavirus outbreak.

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A Future Hunger Pandemic

2020-12-29

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2020-12-29

The coronavirus has dominated all of our lives in recent months. Radical paths were taken by politicians in the form of lockdowns to contain the pandemic. But we should recognize that even if the coronavirus is a (major) challenge for us, we always have to keep a holistic view of world events.

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2020 the “Worst Year Ever”–You’re Joking, Right?

2020-12-29

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2020-12-29

So party on, because "the worst year ever" is ending and the rebound of financial markets, already the greatest in recorded history, will only become more fabulous.

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The Problem with Mandatory “Socially Responsible Investing”

2020-12-28

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2020-12-28

The term environmental social governance (ESG) investing is relatively new. As described in Forbes, [An] approach that is slowly on the rise is ESG activism, where an activist fund will take a position in the security of a company with the aim of campaigning to make its business better in terms of governance, less environmentally unfriendly and more socially responsible.

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Die Google-Präsidentschaftswahl

2020-12-27

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2020-12-27

“Sei nicht böse” ist zwar nicht mehr länger Google’s offizielles Unternehmensmotto, aber es verbleibt Bestandteil des letzten Satzes in seinem Verhaltenskodex. Unter ‘nichts Böses machen’ versteht Google nach wie vor, dass «alles [was es tut] in Verbindung mit [seiner] Arbeit … an den höchstmöglichen Standards des ethischen Geschäftsverhaltens gemessen wird und werden sollte.»

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Why the Marketplace Is Not a Zero-Sum Game

2020-12-26

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2020-12-26

Twenty-twenty marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of a book that has had an expanding influence on the public conversation about market competition. Robert Frank and Philip Cook’s 1995 The Winner-Take-All Society argued that there are an increasing number of markets in which small differences in performance give rise to enormous differences in rewards.

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Swiss groups argue about parking spaces

2020-12-25

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2020-12-25

Even good drivers might struggle to fit their cars into the allotted parking spaces in Switzerland. Yet Swiss cities don’t necessarily want to provide larger spaces.

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How Austrian Is Your Business? Continuous Value Perception Monitoring Is One Measure.

2020-12-25

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2020-12-25

With the development of the Austrian Business Paradigm and the Austrian Business Model, and tools such as the "Value Learning Process," businesses of all kinds can utilize the deep insights of Austrian economics to further enhance how they facilitate value for their customers.

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Cool Video: A Look Ahead to 2021

2020-12-24

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2020-12-24

I joined Ben Lichtenstein, host of the morning futures program at TDAmeritrade.  It is in the futures market that I began my career, and where I gained respect for local traders, who do not have a large institutional backing such as a bank or hedge fund, and are trading their own capital, and taking the risk often from those institutional participants. 

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